^ \ fj? 



\ 



V'"- .:-*, 



r^^-- 



vA 



THE TRUE IDEA OF FEMALE EDUCATION. 




M ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT PITTSFIELD, MASS., 



THE YOUNG LADIES' INSTITUTE, 



AT ITS ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT, AUGUST 22, 1855. 



BY 



JAMES R. SPALDING. 



lablb-^cb bg rtqtitst. 



NEW YOKK: 
JOHNF. TROW, PRINTER, 53 ANN-STREET 

1855. 



k^ 



m^ 




CopV ^ 



THE TRUE IDEA OF FEMALE EDUCATION. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT PITTSFIELD, MASS., 



THE YOUNG LADIES' INSTITUTE, 



AT ITS ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT, AUGUST 22, 1855. 



BY 

JAMES R. SPALDING. 



^tjblisl^fb bg xtqmst. 



NEW YORK: 
JOHNF. TROW, PRINTER, 53 ANN- STREET 

1855. 






Co' 



IflW YORK PUBL. LIBR. 






■o 



ADDRESS. 



For woman is not nndevelopt man, 

But diverse ; could we mate her as the man, 

Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this, — 

Not like to like, but like in difference : 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 

The man be more of woman, she of man ; 

He gain in sweetness, and in moral height. 

Nor lose the w-restling thews that throw the world ; 

She mental breadth ; -noV fail in -childward care ; 

More as the double-natured poet each ; 

Till at the last she set herself to man, 

Like perfect music unto noble words. 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers. 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be 

Self-reverent each, and reverencing each, 

Distinct in individualities, 

But like each other, e'en as those who love. 

I trust tliat all present both comprehend and feel 
the trutli^ as well as the beauty, of these words of the 
first* of living poets. It is my purpose to say something 
upon the distinctive process of female education — a dis- 
tinctive process arising from a diversity in organization, 
and in sphere ; and yet I cannot consent to enter into 
any formal argument, to prove that feminine nature is 
not identical with masculine nature, or to determine the 

* Tennyson. 



superiority of either the one or the other, in the scale 
of existence. They are both correlative, each peculiar, 
and yet each made for the other ; both sharing in com- 
mon elements of being under different modifications, 
and each possessing powers, the developing and har- 
monizing of which are necessary to the realization of the 
ideal type of the race. 

My very soul is sickened at the antagonistic spirit so 
often displayed in upholding what are called the rights 
of woman. It profanes the sex ; it affronts high Heaven. 
Man and woman are co-workers here on earth, and co- 
heirs of immortality. Each gives the other the precedence 
on the score of high nobility, and each counts it a glory 
to learn of the other. Tlie emancipation of woman I 
Strange words these, for a Christian land. The time, I 
know, has been, when woman was a delicate toy, a pas- 
sive instrument, a petted slave ; but that time ended 
when first her baptism in Christian faith and love began. 
She whom the wisdom of hoary antiquity deemed too 
weak to act as witness to a dying man's will, was called 
upon to give her testimony to the cause of God. From 
the palace and the cottage, gathered from all ranks, 
made up of all ages, matrons grave with years, young 
mothers with clinging infants, virgins tender and pure 
as the maid-mother of Him they adored, calmly and 
cheerfully bore the horrid penalties of the faith that 
was in them. Mangled and gored by wild cattle, torn 
by savage beasts, mutilated and hacked piecemeal by 
the executioner, their flesh rent by scourges, their spirit 
more deejDly agonized still by that last refinement of 
the praetor's cruelty, exposure in the public street 
to the mocking indignities of the populace — thus did 
this holiest army of martyrs lift up their spotless sacri- 
fice to God, and then it was that the misprised name of 



woman was redeemed once and for ever from tlie dese- 
cration of the past, and she stood forth before the world 
an immortal creature, made to serve and glorify God, 
a spiritual being, with spiritual faculties, for spiritual 
ends. From that time she has been morally free — free 
in the line, and to the extent, that her own regenerated 
will required and sanctioned ; free to aspire 

Unto the calms and magnanimities, 
The lofty uses, and the noble ends, 
The sanctified devotion and full work, 
To which she is elect for evermore.* 

Assured then, by Christianity, of her solemn respon- 
sibilities and high destinies, it is not only the privilege 
but the duty of woman to secure the just and full de- 
velopment of her own proper nature, and thus fit her- 
self most completely for her own appropriate sphere. 
The process of effecting this is nothing more or less 
than Female Education. 

Now, it is very easy, in considering the different 
phases of nature in man and woman, to say, as Milton 
did of Adam and Eve — 

For contemplation he and valor formed ; 
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace, f 

For it is very easy to see that the reflective faculties 
generally predominate in man, and the affective in 
woman, and that energy marks the one, and sensibility 
the other. This answers well enough in its way for a 
running distinction, but it will be very apt to deceive 
us, if we forget the essential unity of the human soul, 
and take the reigning element as an exclusive possession 
and power. Woman, to be woman, must reflect as well 

•Mrs. Barrett Drama of Exile, 
f Paradise Lost. Book IV. 



as feel ; and man, to be man, must feel as well as reflect. 
Thonglit and feeling stand reciprocally in need of each 
other, in the work of developing character. As thought 
gains new life and animation from the rich feeling, with 
its quick, tender and profound movements of the soul, 
deriving therefrom its vital nourishment and sustenance ; 
even so, the feelings are not unfrequently first awak- 
ened, and very often strengthened and elevated, by the 
lofty flight of thought, in its bold and searching inqui- 
ries. The mind of woman differs from that of man, 
chiefly in its being more imbued with feeling, and thus 
more delicately knit together, more harmoniously ad- 
justed, and more keenly vivified, while man's mind is 
fitted for a more daring and a more abstract, a wider 
and a cooler range. It is a common remark, that 
woman excels in tact. Yet what is tact, but the judg- 
ment of feeling, controlling outward action.. We hear, 
too, that the opinions of woman are rather intuitions 
than loofical conclusions. Yet what are her intuitions, 
but the instantaneous impressions made upon her entii^e 
nature, sympathetic as well as sentient. 

It is this difference in the higher nature of the sexes 
— thought predominating in the one, and feeling in the 
other — and the natural affinity of thought and feeling, 
their tendency towards a living intercommunion, that 
gave so much force and truth to the old philosophical 
idea, that each sex finds in the other the psychological 
complement of its own being and character, and that 
it is the attraction between the two which gives the 
charm to all social intercourse, and their perfect and 
permanent union, through the assimilating power of 
love, that makes man and wife oi^e — something more 
than a harmony, a completed unity. It would not be- 
come me, perhaps, to be very absolute on this subject, 



but I cannot help marking tlie perfect accordance of 
this Platonic idea, with that account of the S23iritual 
structure of our humanity, given in the first chapter of 
Genesis — " So God created man in His own image, in 
the image of God created He him ; male and female 
created He them," the idea of duality here being en- 
tirely merged in that of unity. It is a truth too often 
forgotten, that what is called the subordination of one 
sex to the other was a result not of their original cre- 
ation, but of their subsequent fall. It had its rise in 
the curse pronounced upon the woman, " Thy desire 
shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." 
But the fall, though it corrupted the will, and darkened 
and confused our whole nature, did not destroy any of 
the primal elements of our being, and the ideal type of 
the race yet remains. 

These truths being justly apprehended, the term 
Education as applied to woman at once assumes its full 
significance. She is not, any more than man, a thing 
to be made up for a certain end — not to be fitted out 
simply for marriage, any more than he is to be fitted 
out simply for a profession. In an old Latin treatise of 
St. Bernard is the following admirable passage : " There 
are those who wish to know, for the mere sake of know- 
ing ; this is a low curiosity. There are those who wish 
to know that they may be known, and this is a low 
vanity. There are also those who wish to know, that 
they may sell their knowledge, so to speak, for money, 
for honors [had the old saint lived now-a-days, and 
looked at accomplishments as understood and cultivat- 
ed in some of our boarding-schools, would he not have 
added for marriage ?] and this is low venality. But there 
are those, also, who wish to know, that they may up- 
build, and this is charity ; and likewise those who wish 



to know that they may be upbuilt, and this is wisdom. 
Of those, the last two only do not pervert the real end 
of knowledge, which is to be good and to do good." 
Education, then, in both sexes, is a sacred duty, life- 
lono" and ever progressive. Its result in both cases is 
to develope and harmonize the native capacities and 
qualities : — in both sexes producing strength and beauty, 
nobleness and loveliness ; but, in accordance with the 
original constitution of their respective natures, the 
strength and nobleness predominant in the one, the 
beauty and loveliness in the other ; and in their out- 
ward efficacy both working by action and by influence, 
but in the one sex chiefly by action, in the other chiefly 
by influence. 

Education is development, discipline, culture; and 
that education is right for woman, whose development 
unfolds all the stronger faculties of the soul, and which 
does not yet crowd upon or overshadow the least of her 
sweet instincts and sunny sympathies — whose disci- 
pline represses evil propensity, and attempers the soul 
to firmness and consistency, to self-control and self-reli- 
ance, and yet does no violence to that delicacy which 
naturally marks her perceptions, and that freshness 
which naturally pervades her feelings, imparting such 
peculiar buoyancy and glow to her faith, her hope, and 
her love ; and whose culture improves her tastes, en- 
larges her sense of the beautiful, and enriches her ima- 
gination, and yet does not enervate her sensibilities, or 
impair in any degree the more serviceable stamina of 
the soul. 

The first and last object of all true education, either 
in man or woman, is the harmonious fullness of being. 
The law is incumbent upon every one, in every condi- 
tion and sphere, to become all that he was created 



9 

capable of being ; to be alive witb his whole being, con- 
sciously, happily alive, and for beneficent results. To 
prescribe the exact means and exact manner by which 
this is to be effected, is impossible. All right education 
proceeds on the principle of cherishing and correcting 
nature, not of rooting it out and supplying its place with 
something better. It must allow scope for the exercise 
of free will, and take account of the varieties of ori- 
ginal structure. Nature is infinite in her combinations, 
and woman, no more than man, was made to be shaped 
into one common mould. A true and healthful train- 
ing no more destroys variety among men and among 
women, than a true and healthful growth destroys va- 
riety among the trees of the forest. There is as much 
diversity among the good as among the bad, among the 
flowers as among the weeds. It is true, that there are 
certain qualities which are indispensable to every good 
character, as petals are to flowers. But it is not the mere 
presence, or the mere number, of the petals that gives 
the charm to the flower. It is their native coloring and. 
their native fragrance. And as these differ, not only 
in degree but in kind, so character differs in all its finer 
essences and issues. Nature will take care of this. She 
will indeed let you, by your wise and patient skill, turn 
and train even many of the evil roots she has fixed in 
the very core of our being, so that they shall grow up 
not into briers, but into roses in the field of our life ; 
and will lend all her best influences to your work, and 
manifest herself most distinctly and graciously in 
the result, if you will deal genially by her, and not 
thrust her aside, or crush her down. If this were better 
heeded, we should soon hear less of the complaint, that 
there is so little in even cultivated society that is truly 
spontaneous, and so much that is purely artificial. 



10 

If right education must have regard to differences 
in individual nature, it must much more have regard to 
differences in sexual nature. Now, there are three qua- 
lities which are the natural elements of Avomauhood — 
they are, modesty, tenderness, and geace. These are a 
credit to man, but to woman they are something more 
than a credit — they are an absolute necessity. They 
are set, by the kind hand of Nature, in her very inmost 
being, and it is very difficult, in most cases actually im- 
possible, to pluck them out utterly. When this is done, 
she is unsexed, and becomes a monster. These three 
qualities are intimately related to each other, and yet 
each is distinct in its manifestation and its effect. Mo- 
desty is woman's natural safeguard — that quick and de- 
licate feeling in the soul, which makes her shrink and 
withdraw herself from every thing that has danger in 
it — that innate sensibility which warns her to shun the 
first appearance of every thing which is hurtful, and 
ever tends to keep her within her own bright and pure 
womanly sphere. Tenderness is what makes her sus- 
ceptible to all gentle and generous impulses of soul and 
sense — which gives quickness to her sympathies, soft- 
ness to her judgments, devotedness to her love, and 
pity to her disdain ; which ever inclines her to charity 
rather than to rigor, to mercy rather than to justice. 
Grace is that native indefinable quality of her soul, 
which inspires a beautiful propriety in every word and 
movement — that sense of the becoming which uncon- 
sciously imparts something of symmetry to all that she 
says and does, suggestive of delicacy, fineness, uncon- 
straint, instinctive aptitude. These three qualities, or 
rather instincts — modesty, tenderness and grace — exist, 
I say, more or less in the original constitution of every 
woman. The most simple and complete child of nature 



11 

Shakespeare ever bodied fortli, Miranda, reared by 
her father alone on an isle secluded 'from all the world, 
was merely the bright, consummate, untainted flower of 
these germs, which nature has jDlaced in every femi- 
nine soul. 

Above aught else, then, in every system of female 
education, these should have their true and perfect 
growth. If checked, or in any degree perverted, the 
feminine character inevitably suffers; it loses in loveli- 
ness and in influence. And yet how often are they 
checked or perverted. For modesty^ let ball-room 
dances and ball-room dresses answer; for tenderness^ 
let tabernacle diatribes and tea-table scandal answer ; 
for grace^ pick your way around the stiffnesses, the an- 
gularities, and the points of some of our literary cote- 
ries, look at the startings and the jerkings, listen to the 
fizzings and the cracklings of the kind of females there, 
who seem to you never to have been young, and who, 
you are very sure, will never know how to grow old, 
and get your answer. 

An effort is often, perhaps usually, made to repair 
artificially any detriment done to the vitality and form 
of these natural qualities, but it is never very success- 
ful. The counterfeit, by a discerning eye, is detected 
^at once. For the ingenuousness of modesty, we have 
boldness ; for its coyness, prudery. For the delicacy of 
tenderness, we have daintiness ; for its warmth, senti- 
mentality. For the self-poise of grace, we have effort ; 
for its self-direction, mannerism. Woman, doubtless, 
should have many acquwements / but let her beware 
of reckoning among these acquired modesty, acquired 
tenderness, and acquired grace. These may be beauti- 
fied and enriched ; but acquired, when once lost, — never. 
They are the true vital essence of womanhood, giving it 



12 

all its bloom find perfume, making its mere effluence 
an irresistible influence, interfusing all the other qua- 
lities and all the faculties, and blending them together 
into one perfect, homogeneous, indivisible whole. Being 
instinctive, they are not actual virtues in themselves, 
but they are necessary to the beauty and the perfection 
of virtue. They set the laws of conscience, as it were, 
to a music, in harmony with every good chord of your 
being. They make reverence no longer a self-interested 
fear ; but the glad, confiding, though yet trembling, up- 
rising of the heart towards the majesty of goodness. 
They make stern duty genial, so that it shall work upon 
others not through constraint, but through love, and 
upon yourselves, not through rigorous self-exaction, but 
through generous self-sacrifice. The masculine nature, 
too, has these inherent qualities, but not in such large 
proportion. It is this predominance in the feminine 
soul that furnishes some ground, perhaps, for the asser- 
tion that woman is naturally more religious than man. 
At all events, I think I may safely say, that she, with 
her fair, calm spirit, has but to look around, where he, 
in his native vehemence, has to look up — that it is her 
privilege to say, almost intuitively, of Duty : — 

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 

while his well-deliberated words are : — 

Thou dost preserve the stars from -wrong ; 

And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.* 

I have now spoken of certain qualities which every 
woman has by nature, which compose the very essence 
of her true womanhood, and which it is supremely ne- 

* Wordsworth. Ode to Duty. 



13 

cessary for lier to dierisli in all tlieir perfection. But 
these, indispensable as they are, do not constitute the 
stamina of her character as a probationary being, with 
high responsibilities and hard trials to meet here on the 
earth. For this we must look to the faculties which 
she shares with man, her fellow probationer — to her 
intellect, her imao^ination, her will. These must be ex- 
panded, strengthened, disciplined, regulated. She has 
a conscience, too, and that must be enlightened, and 
armed with all its rightful power. All these faculties 
of her being ought to be educated ; yes, if you will, 
educated up to the very highest degree, but educated 
in harmony with each other, and, chief of all, educated 
in harmony with her native attributes. 

Expand and furnish the intellect^ so that she shall 
understand the actual scope and relations of things, form 
correct judgments, think deeply and discerningly, and 
talk intelligently and aptly ; but no such unnatural 
stimulus should be applied to the intellectual part of 
her being, as to make that the central seat of her life, 
draw away and lock up here the subtile currents of her 
womanly nature, and constitute that peculiar produc- 
tion which every body has heard of and nobody loves, 
" a strong-minded female." We hear of the sad power of 

abstruse research to steal 



From man's own nature all the natural man. * 

The stealth of the natural woman is a thousand times 
more melancholy. 

I have said that the imagination must be culti- 
vated. It is a noble faculty. Bonaparte said that 
imagination rules the world. The sense of ' beauty 
resides there — that which colors, exalts, etherializes 

* Coleridge. Ode to Dejection. 



14 

— that whicli furnislies faith and bope and love with 
their inspiring ideal — that which lends enthusiasm 
its celestial wings — that which quickens and vivifies the 
great law of association, brings your own soul into com- 
munion with the spirit of nature, invests the most com- 
mon things of life with a poetry. 

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks ; 
Sermons in stones, and good in every tiling.* 

Cultivate, then, imagination. Woman needs it no less 
than man, and it is even more cons^enial with both her 
duties and her nature. It will make the happiness 
already possessed all the more happy, and open a thou- 
sand new sources of delight unknown before. And yet, 
if this faculty be not wisely cultivated, if it become 
over-excited, and acquire a growth disproportionate to 
that of the i-eflective and the moral faculties, it produces 
the most baneful effect upon the whole being. It can- 
not be allowed to luxuriate, without inducing the con- 
sequences of all luxury, enervation and enfeeblement, 
— without unfitting for all the sober realities and prac- 
tical duties of life, and turning life itself into an idle 
revery. 

The ivill^ which is less a faculty than, like instinct, a 
working living principle, must be strengthened and re- 
gulated, for it is the executive power of the whole being. 
I mean by it that energy of the soul which gives self- 
mastery. This in woman, as in man, is indispensable to 
the formation of positive noble character. 

Unless above himself lie can 

Erect himself, how mean a thing is man ! 

It was said of the whole race. She who has not ac- 

* Shakspear-?. As You Like it. Act T. Scene II. 



15 

quired tliis power, wlio is wont to resign herself pas- 
sively to natural impulse, or agreeable feeling, however 
good-natured that impulse or feeling may be, has not, 
any more than the bird of the air, the dignity of a mo- 
ral being. It may be said, that it is not imparted but 
self-education which gives this power. This, undeniably, 
to a large extent is true. Yet that outward discipline 
may perform a very efficient part in this process, no one 
who bethinks himself of the Spartan system and its re- 
sults, can doubt. But, however desirable and necessary 
strength of will may be, when it acquires such strenuous- 
ness as to find a positive pleasure in unconditional vo- 
lition, that is to say, when it becomes wilfulness and 
rules for the mere sake of ruling, it becomes a gross 
deformity. Its work is not self control, but self-suffi- 
ciency — ^a self-sufficiency forbidding all dependence, and 
repelling all sympathy. There is, then, a necessity that 
will should be trained with reference to all the sensibi- 
lities and capabilities of woman's nature. 

And so too of conscience. Conscience is the voice 
of moral law, and all law is strict and exacting in its 
very nature. The conscience cannot be too fully 
brought out, if brought out in harmony with the other 
portions of our being, nor can its dictates be too impli- 
citly obeyed. But, supreme within its own sphere, as 
it is, it was never meant to maintain constant dictation. 
It has authority, but it is too royal to be jealous of the 
loving instincts of the soul. It imposes a law upon a 
child to obey his parents, but it is well pleased that the 
child should obey his parents spontaneously, in answer 
to the promptings of his own loving nature. Tliey 
wrong conscience greatly, who make her a despot in- 
stead of a guardian, and can find praise for no act that 
she herself does not exclusively direct. The very per- 



16 

fection, too, of all riglit doing, is doing riglit not only 
conscientiously, but lovingly — not only obediently, but 
freely, impulsively, gladly. " If ye love me, keej) my 
commandments." It is the chief glory of woman tbat, 
excelling, as slie does, in the sympathetic part of her 
nature, she is so peculiarly capable of this. Any sys- 
tem of moral education which impairs this, or leaves it 
out of account, does her a most unnatural wrong. 

I repeat, then, that all these faculties — intellect, ima- 
gination, will, and conscience — must be educated harmo- 
niously with each other, and above all, harmoniously 
with the three special elements of feminine nature. If 
this be done, those elements will only receive additional 
fullness and lustre. Her modesty will be dignified 
by her discerning intellect and her self-directing will ; 
her grace will be glorified by her vivifying imagin- 
ation ; and her tenderness will be dignified, and glo- 
rified, and sanctified by her enlightening and hallowing 
conscience. And thus, simply by the wise development 
of her own proper nature, with the promised grace of 
God, we have a " spirit, yet a woman too " — 

A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
To "warn, to comfort, and command, 
And yet a spirit still, and bright, 
With something of an angel light.* 

I have spoken of woman's capability. I have some- 
thing to say of her responsibility. If not outwardly so 
arduous and imposing as that of man, it is yet intrinsi- 
cally more sacred and sublime. I will not discuss 
woman's appropriate sphere. The praters upon this 
subject dishonor her. She fixes her sphere for herself, 
or rather her own true nature fixes it for her. She 
dwells not in the suburbs of man's good j)leasure here, 

* Wordsworth. A Portrait. 



17 

but ill her own high instincts finds her own " true fixed 
and resting quality." Woman's predominating sensi- 
bility holds her chiefly to domestic duties, as man's pre- 
dominating energy holds him chiefly to public duties. 
I speak of the main bent and the natural province. Of 
course, man has a share in domestic life, and woman, 
through society, a share in public life, and through au- 
thorship, too, if she feels impelled to resort to it, — 
though I have the authority of that most excellent 
judge of woman, Mrs. Jameson, for saying, that it is 
most certain that of the women who have ventured into 
the public path of literature, three fourths have done it 
because placed in a painful or needy position in respect 
to domestic life. 

The responsibility of Woman, then, at home, is her 
primary responsibility, and I fearlessly say that there 
is no responsibility on earth like it. I say it, because 
she has the chief custody and control of that period of 
human life in which, more than any other, the character 
is formed not only for this world, but for an unspeak- 
ably blessed, or an awfully cursed immortality. Re- 
sponsibility ! Where, now, in the arena of public life, 
from centre to circumference, is there such responsibi- 
lity, even so far as regards matters of this world, as was 
that of Mary, the mother of Washington, or of Letitia, 
the mother of Napoleon? What man living has 
wrought a more terrible work than was wrought by the 
caressing and flattering, raging and cursing, mother of 
Byron ? Napoleon knew men well. None better. His 
words were : " The future character of a child is always 
the work of its mother ; " and to Madame Campan he 
said : " Be it your care to train up mothers who shall 
know how to educate their children." Tacitus says of 



18 

Agricola : " He governed his family, wliicli many find 
to be a harder task than to govern a j^rovince." What 
would have been the words, had Tacitus had an under- 
standing, too, of Christian responsibilities ? " Unhappy 
is the man," says Jean Paul Eichter, " for whom his 
own mother has not made all other mothers venerable." 
Where is the man, and where the woman, whose very 
heart's heart does not quiver in response to that ? 

The mother, whether she is directly sensible of it 
or not, is the educator of the strongest and most per- 
manent part of our humanity, the sympathetic and 
moral nature — the very part, too, which is the most 
complex and the most sensitive, and the most difficult 
to brace and adjust to perfect harmony. The greatest 
obstacle that education has to contend against is wilful- 
ness. This evil is inborn in the very nature of man, 
and manifests itself in full force in the very earliest 
period of life, and in an almost unlimited variety of 
forms. It is no small thing to subdue it at all ; but it 
is a great thing, often a thing requiring a wisdom ex- 
celling that of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, to sub- 
due it without doing lasting injury to all of the finer 
qualities of the soul. And yet what bitter discords 
from within, and what hard reverses from without, 
shall come, if it be not subdued. There are certain 
states of the child's mind in which its indulgence in the 
merest trifle may commence an unhealthful movement 
of the soul, which will last as long as life lasts. How 
few are there vAio fully realize that a trifle to them is 
no trifle to a child — that the cheapest plaything may 
be a child's kingdom. 

What an incalculable effect upon man's character 
has a truthful disposition ; — and yet this invariably has 
its origin in the earliest period of life. I mean not 



19 

simj)ly the liabit of truth-telling, for that, when it 
springs from the fear of discovery, as in children it is 
too often made to do, is of little worth. I mean the 
spirit of truth — that which manifests itself in thought 
and in action, as well as in word, and from which come 
frankness, openness, good faith, honesty, in one word, 
sincerity — sincerity to one's self, sincerity to mankind 
in general, sincerity in social relations, sincerity in busi- 
ness, sincerity in pleasure. This loyalty to truth is a 
sentiment which the mother alone can thoroughly in- 
spire ; and yet how often, alas, is it, that she, in her 
thoughtlessness or her ignorance, contents herself with 
merely a verbal conformity, and heeds not the saddest 
form of lying — " the lie," as Bacon says, " that sinketh 
in," and becomes part of the character. 

The child is an admiring being. " Heaven lies 
about us in our infancy," and bright hues invest every 
thing. " Tell me what you admire," says Carlyle, " and 
I will tell you what manner of man you are ; " and in 
all education there is nothing so important as this teach- 
ing what to admire, and why to admire. It is error or 
neglect in this part of early training, by the mother, 
that, more than any thing else, produces the false stand- 
ards and false tastes which so many, in these artificial 
times, carry with them through life, and which make 
the lesson so hard to learn, that the simplest and cheap- 
est pleasures are the truest and most precious. 

And so of almost every phase of the child's charac- 
ter ; it iSj in great measure, the result of the faithfulness 
or the unfaithfulness, the wisdom or the folly, of the 
mother. What responsibility has man to meet, that 
can exceed either in dignity or in difficulty the right 
training of an immortal spirit ? What can require the 



20 

more complete development of every higli faculty of 
the soul ? A weak-hearted and weak-minded mother 
is the saddest of all sights the sun shines upon. 

The power of woman, too, in her other domestic re- 
lations, demands the highest cultivation of her nature. 
She was made to be the light of the whole household : 



-A light 



Shining ■within, when all without is night t* 

It is her peculiar privilege to live away from the world's 
sharp strife. She has no profession to warp the even- 
ness of her mind, or cares of business to tarnish the 
freshness of her soul. Her own peculiar trials she 
doubtless has, for trial is incident to every human lot. 
There is a mildew that settles upon all hearts not well 
ordered, wherever found beneath the skies. But, if 
woman's heart 1)6 well ordered, there is nothing which 
should hinder or mar its full blossoming ; for her heart, 
like man's, is in God's world, which is as full of rich, 
pure, sweet influences, as the morning is of dew-drops ; 
and yet is not so near the broad highway of life as to 
be bruised by its violence, or soiled by its dust, or 
withered by its glare. She was made to live in an 
atmosphere of light and of love, wooing from her all 
the in-born sweetnesses of her nature, opening her the 
more completely to divine refreshings from on high, and 
calling out odors of faith, and hope, and charity, which 
shall operate as a healing balm and holy stimulus upon 
all around. Woman, if she be truly woman, is, within 
her own household, a vital elemental force, evermore 
radiating ethereal life and energy. She is a Presence 
as well as a Power, and achieves by what she is as well 
as what she does. She inspires unawares. In the light 

* Rogers. Human Life. 



21 

of her placid strength, a faith in human nature, and in 
the possibility of all grand things, grows we trow not 
how. Public opinion pales into weakness and meanness 
before her high ideal, and we are slaves no longer. Her 
subtle love, her magnetic enthusiasm, cherishes into 
more genial life the motive that shall prompt brave 
endeavor, and stay the spirit in the very heat of the 
strife, like the murmur of far-off music. She endears, 
and, in endearing, ennobles. She transfuses her temper 
to our souls without effort, as she paints her image on 
our eyes. There is no such spell as comes from her 
sweetness and unassuming strength. Books can instruct 
and entertain, pictures and statues may bring beauty, 
and hirelings may duly care for the house; bat love 
that floods cannot quench, resilient hope, outshining joy, 
sweet trust and holy fear, bright honor, faithfulness, 
gentleness, charity, and, chief of all, the impassioned 
feeling that impels the strenuous will ; — these are the 
" rib of the man," and from these, moulded in living 
loveliness, his destined help-meet sprang to rouse him 
and gird him to all noble daring and doing, to make 
life rich and duty glorious, so that he shall be a true- 
hearted warrior here on the earth, while yet with her a 
rejoicing co-traveller toward the skies. We best learn the 
unsuspected might of a being like this, when we try the 
desolateness that sinks like night upon the home where 
once her presence shone and now is seen no more. In 
view of what woman thus may be, and ofttimes is, re- 
plete, full-charactered and heavenly as the morning star, 
alas, that there should ever be occasion for such a 
cry as that of Milton's against " that unspeakable 
weariness and despair of all sociable delight, which 
turn the blessed ordinance of God into a sore evil 
under the sun, or at least to a familiar mischief — a 



22 

drooj^ing and disconsolate household — captivity with- 
out refuge or redemption." 

But the influence of a true woman is not confined 
to those of her own household. She forms the grace 
and attraction of all social life. In the days of chi- 
valry, her 

bright eyes 

Rained influence, andjiidged the prize.* 

She it was that inspired, to use the language of Burke, 
" that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud sub- 
mission, that diornified obedience, that subordination of 
the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the 
spirit of an exalted freedom ; that untaught grace of 
life, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, 
which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage, 
whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever 
it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil 
by losing all its grossness." f And she certainly has lost 
no power, as men have advanced in civilization and 
Christianity. She yet wins, and leads, and judges with 
her sweet, still conclusions, and nothing which she in 
very truth despises and repels, can stand. She holds 
the keys of social intercourse, and adjusts to her own 
will what shall be the received standard of propriety 
and honor. Men, as in knightly times, are not only 
ready to serve her, but they look to her to sho^ them 
how she will be served ; and this she does not by ar- 
bitrary dictate, not often even by conscious design, but 
by an outflowing movement, a bright benign exhal- 
ing of mind and soul, which, though impalpable, is not 
to be ignored or withstood. "Whatever may be the 
customs and laws of a country," says a French writer. 



* Milton. L' Allegro, 
f Reflections on the French Revolution. 



L.dfC. 



23 

'- women always give the tone to morals." This is true ; 
and there has never yet been a time of public degrada- 
tion, in which women of high mark in society have not 
played a prominent part. I do not pretend that social 
life is pervaded, as it might be, by the redeeming influ- 
ence of woman's spirit ; but she has reason to reproach 
herself, if it is not. 

' Woman, too, if she will, has her post in literature 
— a post recognized as hers, not by courtesy, but by 
right, and most worthily is she now fulfilling it. I 
count it one of the most cheering auspices of the 
times, that her voice is in such large measure en- 
tering English and American literature. It min- 
gles among the fierce polemics of the day, " as the 
lute pierceth through the cymbal's clash," by its very 
gentleness tempering, and refining, and beautifying 
all. It is true, and doubtless always will be true, so 
long as woman retains her retiring womanly nature, that 
female authorship does not often proceed from sponta- 
neous impulse, and that it does often come from wrongs 
too deep to be forgiven, from regrets too bitter to be 
forgotten, from repinings too sharp to be borne, or from 
necessities too cruel to be resisted, and that aberrations 
and harsh discords not seldom arise therefrom, and show 
themselves in what she gives out to the world; but 
H is none the less certain, that the general effect of her 
utterance through books is, and always must be, in har- 
mony with the delicate tones of her native soul. Tens 
of thousands of women, too, are called upon to be the 
public teachers and guides of childhood and youth, and 
have thereby a power to exercise an influence upon 
future national character, scarcely to be estimated. All 
of the great benevolent enterprises of the day depend 
upon woman greatly for their support, and she is the 



24 

almost exclusive minister of the common charities of 
daily life. Upon her judgment here, as well as upon 
her spirit, depends a vast amount of social good or evil. 
In short, there is no limit to woman's influence and re- 
sponsibility. There is no condition of life in which she 
is precluded from these, and none in which their exercise 
may not employ the fullest powers of her nature, even 
when developed in the most complete measure. Espe- 
cially is this true in our own country, where woman 
enjoys higher consideration and greater freedom of ac- 
tion, than in any other nation of the world, and where, 
too, the very existence of the government depends upon 
the sustained aspiration and virtue of the people. In 
her hands, whether she feels it or not, lie the destinies 
of the Republic. 

I have now spoken of the kind of education woman 
should receive, and of its solemn and yet glorious im- 
port to her and to the world. A sensible advance, I 
believe, is every year made throughout the land towards 
this high standard. If such an advance there really is, 
we shall in good time hear fewer complaints, that in 
high life there are to be found so many brilliant crea- 
tures of fairest face and form, complete in every out- 
ward charm and adornment, superlative in grace, ex- 
quisite in tact, airy in spirits, sprightly in converse, and 
radiant with smiles ; and yet conquest their only 
thought, and self their only admiration, caring only to 
keep decently up to the world's mark of virtue, turning 
social communion into a conventional piece of acting, 
and reducing all their high means of influence to the 
service of a morbid excitement, and the gratification of 
a heartless vanity ; — and that in middle life there is so 
much wretched slavery to outward appearances, so much 
of carking care and calculating anxiety to imitate the 



25 

extravagance of wealthier neighbors, so much impover- 
ishing of mind, closing up of soul and hardening of spirit 
for the mere tinsel of life, so much wearing away of the 
heart-strings and spoiling of affection with petty vex. 
ation and capricious humor, so much wasting aimless- 
ness and wasted activity, so much speech spoken that 
is not worth the speaking, so much work wrought that 
is not worth the working, so much life lived that is not 
worth the living. 



REPORT OP THE EXAMINING COMMITTEE FOR 
THE YEAR 1855. 

In the examination whicTi has just closed, some of the pro- 
cesses which are employed in female education, in this insti- 
tution, have been exhibited, and some of the results to which 
those processes have led. One thing has been made obvious 
to us, but not so much from the examination itself, as from the 
general aspect of the several classes, as it has progressed — and 
it must have struck every observer — we refer to those results 
of good discipline and careful training, as to habits and man- 
ners, which are so indispensable in an institution of this kind. 
The deportment to which we refer could not be the result of a 
few days' drilling, in anticipation of the occasion. It would 
certainly betray itself It would not sit so naturally and grace- 
fully upon its wearers. The carriage, the expressions of the 
countenance, the tones of the voice, are often a sure index to 
the influences, which give type to character. Somewhat 
in these regards, so far as this institution is concerned, may be 
owing to the graceful evolutions of the gymnasium attached, 
and to that high cultivation in music, of which we have had so 
many creditable exhibitions during the progress of the examin- 
ation, but particularly in the concert at the close ; but far more, 
we feel convinced, is owing to the presence of a refined Chris- 
tian family, and to models worthy of imitation, in a band of 
kind-hearted, devoted teachers. We have seen, and rejoiced 
at, the spirit which pervades the daily life of this great family 
school. It is no small part of education to teach young persons? 
removed from the restraints and the partialities of home, and 



27 

brought into contact with others of their own age, but marked 
by every variety of disposition and character, to know and con- 
trol themselves, and pay a proper regard to the rights, and 
even the prejudices of their associates. The indirect and un- 
designed arrangements and influences of a seminary may have 
as much, or even more, to do with it, than those which appear 
prominently, in its external discipline and course of study. 

But we are satisfied that these fruits of Christian example, 
refined manners, a kind and faithful discipline, apparent in 
this school, could never have been secured, if the course of 
study did not give the permanence which it does to religious 
instruction. The Bible read through annually, its critical study, 
together with the study of such works as Butler's Analogy, 
and the Evidences of Christianity, afford sufficient evidence 
that the conductors of this institution understand upon what 
means they must chiefly rely to impart to it its proper pervad- 
ing spirit, and in laying the foundations of that character, 
which will secure the future happiness and usefulness of their 
pupils. 

The Committee have been exceedingly pleased with the 
evidence which this examination has afforded ; that it is the 
object of the instruction given here really to educate the mind ; 
that the teachers do not merely regard the mind as a receptacle 
to be filled with the largest possible amount of the details of 
knowledge, but as having faculties which it should be their 
aim to develope, discipline and strengthen. A course of aca- 
demic study can be said to be well finished only when it has 
been the means of teaching the scholar how to use his faculties, 
and to go on in the acquisition of knowledge. 

We are also satisfied that this examination has not been a 
mere stage performance, or parade, but has been fair and 
thorough, and has enabled us to judge of the real progress of 
the pupils. It has reflected great credit on the principals, and 
the j)rofessors and teachers, in all the departments. We believe 
that a young lady, taking the full course at this institution, 
enjoys advantages for intellectual cultivation, hardly, if at all, 
inferior to those enjoyed by our sons at many of the colleges. 
We, therefore, cordially commend it to all parents who would 



28 



secure a school for their daughters, where their minds, their 
manners, and their morals will be carefully guarded and 
cultivated. 

James M. Macdonald, D.D. 

H. Humphrey, D.D. 

J. Brace, D.D. 

Samuel Harris, D.D. 

Pittstield, August 22, 1855. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 646 454 2 # 



